I worked stage security while going to college from 1978-83, so I got to see almost all the major show right up front.
Van Halen, ZZ Top, Yes, Scorpians, Stones, Monsters of Rock Shows, Moody Blues, Molly Hatchet, Inxs, Bad Co, Fleetwood Mac etc etc.
I saw some lousy shows also.
Two that really stuck out in my mind that I paid to see were Robert Cray at the Paramount and Pearl Jam doing pretty much an accustical show with only 2,500 people in attendance at Benaroya Hall.
Wish I was old enough to have seen Hendrix and should have gone and seen SoundGarden, Nirvana and Alice & Chains.
Brian

tull
yes
clapton santana
wings over america

but some of the best were small shows 3 to 5 bucks a ticket at paramont zappa got kicked out of that one .Beck savoy brown uriah heap foghat prolly forgot way more than I can rember Hey it was the early 70s we didnt get ours at the consesion stand .

Top shows? I'll try:

YES in the Spokane coliseum ca 1976 "Relayer" tour. Huge cool snakehead/dinosaur-like lighting fixtures, awesome Wakeman and Howe solos.

HEAD EAST miniconcert in the new(at the time) PAC in Pullman 1979. I seem to remember a small riot breaking out.

NEIL YOUNG/CRAZY HORSE at The Gorge ca 1996(???) We call it the "Hurricane Show" because it rained so f-n hard. You can see it on his DVD "Year of the Horse".

NEIL YOUNG / PEARL JAM at The Gorge ca 1990(???) "The riot!"
Naked dancers atop buses and around bonfires that night in the campground. (Last year for fires, go figure!)

GRATEFUL DEAD ca 86-93 Autzen Stadium, Eugene. All good shows. (Plus, this is when I really "got on the bus"!) Smoked a J and drank a brew with Ken Kesey on his bus "Furthur". '89 -Huge line to get in, buddy walked up to front with an exceptional green bud, says "I'll trade this for cuts in line", instant takers, new friends, inside within one minute!

I'm sure I would list more but thinking back on those DEAD shows has caused my memory to short-circuit, temporarily I hope!

Oh yeah, best YES show ever, Seattle '96 (???) Union Tour.
Bootleg video of this one even!

Moe
Did you see the Dead at Porland Int. Speedway in the early 90's (I think?) It was a year or two before Jerry died....what a horrible show.
He was wearing green sweatpants and the whole show just sucked.
This thread really made me think back to the Black Flag concert in Detroit. That night was cool. I was something like 16 and was about 1984 and stage diving was a new thing (at least to me). Watching Rollins taunt a women in the front row to pull his hair...then kicking her when she did....years later I hardly recongnized him when he shaved his head.
[censored] I feel old.

G n R / Metallica in 92 or something - Massive TV screens of women flashing.

The last 4 Dead shows - Music sucked, but good party favors, etc.

Iron Maiden / Anthrax - 1990 - "Hey what's that smell?"

Allman Bros @ the Gorge - 7th row

Pink Floyd - Whenever they did that reunion trip.

There's a bunch of also rans and a bunch of wishiwoulda's like Sublime, Johnny Cash, Stevie Ray, etc.

Still want to go see Willie before he croaks, anyone going in a few weeks?

Black Crowes with Jimmy Page - Great Woods- Just plain silly. I'm too young to have seen LZ and the Crowes are the best of my time period.

Willie Nelson- Syracuse, New York- He is Willie Freeking Nelson after all.

Phish- Plattsburgh NY- My College town. I was physically awake for the whole thing but Ireally "woke up" for the encore, A day in the life by the Beattles. Perfect white clowds on a blue background. I later heard the tape. Great show :).

Go Sox,
cds

Violent Femmes- seen 'em a bunch of times, various cities. Smaller venues, as Todd said-minimal, lots of energy, awesome.

One of the Day on the Green shows I saw in the Oakland Coliseum, featuring the Pretenders and U2 amongst others.

The Deck the Hall Ball show with Beck, Bush, Moby, Stained, Everlast because the show was good, we got backstage, then on stage, then partied with half of them half the night.

PIL and INXS, serious energy.

Pearl Jam in the grass at the UW, pre big-time.

Billy Idol and Faith No More....Billy Idol dumped a bunch of dead trout on Faith no More while they were playing on stage, then Faith No More went on stage butt naked with paper bags on their heads while Billy Idol was playing, pretty funny.

Blondie, cuz I was young and hitting puberty, and she was hot. (back then).

Pappa Roach, couple different places, they put on a show.

Love and Rockets, just plain good

Rolling Stones in the Kingdome, crappy sound, great show, thought it would be the last time I would see them.

ZZ top over at WAZZU, seen them a couple other times, but that show was energized, they were tearing it up.

Def Leopord, everytime cuz the chicks get funnier every time. The big hair chicks still stuck in the 80's trying to look hot in their high waisted mom jeans is always good entertainment. Then there are always a few who used to be hot, and remained so, they really stand out in that crowd.

Van Halen, who didn't like them in 1984/85.

Godsmack - don't ever miss them.

Worst ever, Phil Collins in the Tacoma Dome, pathetically boring.

I saw the Dead a couple times in San Francisco, I was more impressed with their traveling fans than them.

*By the way, I used to be into concerts like I'm into fishing now..I was addicted.

Love and Rockets were great.

Ahh, I forgot one. In San Francisco I saw a band called Fishbone a few times, they were entertainers to the max and sounded good too, plus a mix of humor in a couple songs. RE: A song called CHOLLY. Look it up, friggin' hilarious song.

man you guys are talking about some shows from a long time ago

where are the shows from the last 3 years???

motley crue @ white river a couple years ago rocked.

it was the first concert i had been to in a very very long time. im only 21 so i cant date back to the early 90's. i wish i could though. the bands of the late 80's early 90's rocked.

now im into hardcore/screamo BUT i still have my heavy metal roots

the new hardcore/screamo bands really put on some good shows. they are right up there with the heavy hitters of the later 80's early 90's

i tink they best concert i have been to in the last 2 years was aiden when they played at the alderwood mall 2 years ago and a element skateboard tour/demo stop.

i fully support the local scene...personaly i think seattle has the best music scene in the country

The first Lollapalooza was pretty good, too...Jane's Addiction, Fishbone, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Violent Femmes, Body Count...there were more, I'm guessin', but that's all I remember...:)

Body Count was Ice-T's heavy metal band...one word...WOW.

Richard, I was at that Billy Idol concert, too...I thought Billy was good, but didn't think FNM was all that great...but they were funnier'n'ell when they came out during Billy's encore naked with bags on their heads and danced around him!

Billy's guys dumped a bunch of goldfish on the stage because FNM got in trouble with PETA or some such nonsense when their video of "Epic" had a goldfish flopping around on a table in it...whatever.

That concert was on Halloween night, too, if I remember correctly...

Fish on...

Todd

Oh, it was goldfish and not trout, I thought it was trout, probably was goldfish, that would make more sense, I was probably a little beer happy. And yeah, it was Halloween night. That was the first concert/date for me and Jennifer. Billy Idol had just recovered from his motorcycle accident I believe.

I forgot about Janes Addiction even though I still listen to them now and then, and Souixsie and the Banshees, they were good. Very Original sound. I can't believe you remember how to spell their name Todd.

Alice Cooper... 1974 Seattle Arena... OK so alice and his band weren't the most gifted performers, but they were however quite the showmen. I'll never forget Alice with a giant tube of toothpaste between his legs, running down a giant molar with feet and screwing the very same molar! Too freakin' strange... I wish I could remember the song they were performing..

Nookie, did you just kill this thread?

Thread not dead yet...
The Gourds last summer at the Tractor in Ballard....I've heard it a million times but still love their rendition of Gin and Juice.

That's a tough one. 5 best is unfair, in that I enjoy a multiple Genre of music. From the Rolling Stones( multiple shows from 1969 to late 80's, as I now find them boring, since I've heard each and every riff, over, and over again for the one millionunt times ), Bob Marley @ The Paramount, Jimi Hendrix -Norman Oklahoma, Miles Davis, Jefferson Airplane, Iggy Popp, The Ramones, Elton John, Deva Premal, Mahalya Jackson, Diana Ross & The Supremes, 4 Tops, The Pretenders, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Santana, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Black Flag, Refuzors, Van Halen, Moody Blues, Who-Clash, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Alice In Chains, Steve Miller(BTW, my neighbor when I lived in Madina), Blondie, Third World, Inner Circle, Garbage, New York Dolls, Go Go's, James Browns, Howling Wolf, Johnny Cash,( even have some of his Jamaica style reggae collaborations from when he lived outside Montego Bay), Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry(Bumbershoot 1980), and many many more. I was in the business for years and got to see many artist and their concerts. A huge number of the shows I attended included a backstage pass and tour member's T shirt.

After experiencing each and every one of those shows, how is it possible that I can now decide which is my best 5? It's impossible! Although many were way over to top and my enjoyment meter quit registering, they all were different, and I wouldn't pick one over the other. I needed each experience in developing my appreciation for all music. I now listen mostly to Reggae, Smooth Jazz, Yoga or New Age techno stuff. Not as toxic as I use to be I guess. BTW, check out some of Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders) new stuff Moodfood by Moodswings. Awesome! Seems she's evolving as well.

Yeah Todd I got to shake Ice-T's hand at Lolla 1. He had some real meathead pipe swinging bodygaurds.... Body Count opened for the GNR/Met boobfest I mentioned above as well.

Seastrike,
No, I never saw the DEAD in Portland. I DID see some awful DEAD shows though, one ca 1980 in the Seattle Coliseum and one I'm guessing 87-88 in the Tacoma Dome. Face it, when you play that many shows, some are bound to suck! Hard to go wrong with the crowd and the scene though even at the crappy DEAD shows!

The last GRATEFUL DEAD show in Seattle, Friday May 25th 1995 was a pretty good one...the "Fire on the Mountain" they played that day was total meltdown and still legendary amongst us deadheads!

Someone asked "where are all the shows from the last 3 years?"
Don't know if this is a demographics thing or not, suspect it is,
but where are all the great BANDS the last 3 years? Perhaps the era of the concert scene is drawing to a close. Sure, economics has something to do with it, but I'm thinking there aren't any new mega-bands out there comparable to, like Led Zeppelin or the Stones, or the Grateful Dead. Where are the new Rush, The Who,
Jethro Tulls, and Moody Blues? And "by the way, which one's PINK?" (FLOYD) There are very few new mega-bands stepping up! Sad thing is, half of us are too busy making ends meet to attend concerts anyways, and the other half can't enjoy concerts like they used to because of homeland security. Otherwise known as "the police state 9/11 created" !!!

I just wish Kid Rock would get back at it big time again. I missed seeing him, bet his concerts are kickin'. I hear he's doing the super small I'm gonna be doing casino shows soon, shows now. There are no true super bands anymore that still rock. Some come and go, but the best rockin' concerts are by the bands who know how to put on a show, not a MTV video for an hour and a half. I did see Crazy Town a couple two or three years ago right after their little hit song, They were wacky and loud, pretty good. Greenday might kinda be considered a band worthy of some names of the past just because of the wide range of ages and people they draw, and the length they have now been going. Linkin Park was on the verge too a couple years ago.

Rush!